


Corona Lockdown

by springburn



Series: The Thick of It mini-fics [65]
Category: The Thick Of It
Genre: COVID 19, Corona Virus Lockdown., F/M, Family, Love, Malcolm Tucker is bored, Marriage, Swearing, love in isolation, social distancing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-17
Updated: 2020-06-17
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:41:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24772552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/springburn/pseuds/springburn
Summary: Britain is in lockdown because of corona virus. Malcolm is at home with his family.
Relationships: Sam Cassidy/Malcolm Tucker
Series: The Thick of It mini-fics [65]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/247540
Comments: 13
Kudos: 32





	Corona Lockdown

**Author's Note:**

> A fun look at Britain in lockdown through the eyes of Malcolm Tucker and the Tucker family.  
> In 'Castaway' the Tucker children were 6,5 and 3. They are now, therefore, 7,6 and 4.  
> Jamie McDonald's daughter Jess is the same age as Malcolm's Grace, and the baby Malcolm, born at the end of 'Castaway' is now one year old. 
> 
> Malcolm is meant to be writing. Well he is....kinda. 
> 
> Some notes.....
> 
> PE with Joe = Joe Wicks the Body Coach and the self styled as Britain's PE teacher. 
> 
> Stephan the plumber appears in 'Malcolm and the Handyman.'
> 
> Matt Hancock is Secretary of State for Health and Social Care in the current government.
> 
> This story is dedicated to all the NHS staff and frontline workers who have kept this country safe and well during the last months and weeks. They are real heroes.

CORONA LOCKDOWN. 

Malcolm Tucker was _trying_ to work. 

Trying. 

Nie on fucking impossible. 

From the lounge came a thud of music and a thump of many feet on the wooden floor. Squeals of laughter, shouts and cries.  
It was like being in the middle of a farmyard. 

Slamming down his laptop lid, Malcolm huffed and swivelled round in his chair before marching out of his study. A big black cloud over his head.  
The sight that met his eyes stopped him in his tracks.  
Four people cavorting around the living room, leaping and jumping, squatting and running on the spot.  
His wife, in lycra, always a vision in his eyes, sweating profusely as she performed burpees. Puffing and red in the face, tendrils of damp hair plastered to her forehead.  
Around her were their progeny. 

Dark haired Jamie, the eldest, dressed as Spider-Man. Fairer Robbie, in a Batman suit and blonde Grace, the youngest, as Wonder Woman. 

The large screen tv pulsed to the sound of PE with Joe. 

_"Lean back urghhh! Keep going! Don't stop now! 15 seconds to go!"_

Malcolm propped himself against the door frame. Arms folded high across his chest. 

What a fucking prat that bloke was! The hair! For Christ's sake! What's that all about? Tied up in a man bun. Little skin tight cycling shorts. Abs you could play a tune on! 

Turning, Sam caught sight of her glowering husband. 

"Come and join in!" She yelled, over the cachophony of over excited children.

"Yeah, right!" Came the reply. "Hang on, I'll just run and fetch my 'look at my crutch' Fabletics!"

His wife gave him a withering look. 

A look that said 'you're such an old curmudgeon'. He shot a hard glance straight back. Challenging. 

"Believe it or not, I'm _trying_ to work!" 

"Well, we're having fun!" She panted, flinging her arms to the side like a rudderless aeroplane.  
"Aren't we kids?" 

No answer was necessary from the three children. They were dancing now, lunging and dipping as they went, round and round the room until Malcolm was dizzy. 

"Good luck with it then!" His parting shot, for want of something clever and better to say, as, closing the lounge door behind him in an attempt to muffle the noise, he returned to his desk. 

oOo

Lockdown. 

It was like chaining a wild animal and leaving it with a bowl of tasty food just out of reach. 

In ordinary times Malcolm worked from home anyway. That wasn't such a problem. Normally the house, during the day, was quiet. He could put in a few hours hard graft before the mob came home from school.  
Then there were various clubs and activities, swimming, football, dancing, a constant to-ing and fro-ing which sometimes involved him, sometimes Sam and sometimes other parents. Picking up or dropping off.  
The two boys out from 9am till 3pm. Grace at nursery from 9am till 1pm.  
Guaranteed precious time when he could crack on with the new book. 

Life had structure. Order. Certainty. 

But since lockdown everything had gone out of the fucking window. 

His children were like feral beasts clawing and gnashing at the bars of their cage. Out of control and constantly hungry.  
Thank god they had a garden in this house! 

For the first time in years, they'd experienced a spring of almost two solid months of glorious weather. 

Fucking typical! 

Unbroken sunshine throughout April and May and all they were allowed was one hour of exercise a day! 

Mind you, at least their local park was still open, so they used it well. Scooters, bikes, football, lots of running about and using up all that pent up energy. 

Straight away he'd been on Amazon and ordered a fucking great day-glo paddling pool and a massive trampoline. 

Took him hours to put the bastard together! Nuts and bolts, clips and elastic, and a net round the outside.  
But once up and running it was a godsend. They could bounce up and down like demented kangaroos to their hearts content.  
Later the same month, a wooden playhouse also appeared. Much to Grace's delight. Complete with side ladder and a slide.  
This, however, was beyond Malcolm's severely limited DIY expertise.  
So Stephan, the lovely plumber slash all round handyman, he of the sculptured frame and fine white teeth, the very same check shirted, bulging bicep Stephan who had done up their bathroom, kindly came round to build it. 

Wearing a face mask and gloves, they'd had to let him in through the side gate and stay indoors while he erected the edifice. Social distancing at least had _some_ good points!  
He was his usual cheerful, mildly flirty self, a fact which made Malcolm scowl, but, as Sam reminded him, Stephan was gay, he had a lovely partner, so what was Malcolm getting so worked up about? 

Fuck knew. 

_"Ah, beootiful meesis Tucker! You looking so well today......"_

Malcolm slammed the patio door shut. Malcontent you might say!

"I'm going to the supermarket. Where's the list?" He growled. 

oOo

What a fucking mission it was. 

The supposedly simple act of doing a bit of grocery shopping. 

Turned into a trip akin to a visit to Porton Down Science facility. Short of undergoing a radiation decontaminating shower and wearing full PPE, you took your life into your own hands.

Waiting patiently.....or impatiently, in a queue carefully marked 2 metres apart. Receiving a regularly sanitised trolley. One person in, one person out and a maximum of 50 in the store at any one time.  
You'd think that would work!  
Yellow lines everywhere on the floor. But there were always people standing for ages just reading the packaging while you waited for them to move. Then when your turn came some other arsehole would reach across you.  
"Hey! Fucking two metres! How hard is it? Twat." 

Large gaps in the shelves where the cunts had been panic buying. 

No pasta sauces. No pasta! 

No toilet rolls. 

No hand gel or bleach. (Well, it had been on the news that Trump had suggested bleaching out the virus.....so maybe they'd decided to try drinking it.....) 

All the eggs were gone. And the tinned soups. 

And.....once again......for fucks sake......no fucking flour! 

Because, of course, there'd been a baking explosion. The nation were, en masse, suddenly turning out millions of fairy cakes. Thousands of Victoria Sponges. Hundreds of loaf cakes and biscuits.  
Sam had been baking with their three. But she baked stuff normally anyway. This wasn't something peculiar to lockdown for them.  
Only recently he'd been forced to bite into, and pretend to be amazed, by Robbie's extremely dry and overfilled buns, which had oozed over the top of the paper cases like amoeboid organisms and which he'd then iced and liberally sprinkled with silver balls which were like eating iron ball bearings.

"Mmmm! Yummy!" He'd beamed, then rushed to the bathroom to check on his fillings. 

The check out girl was also masked and gloved and hidden behind a protective Perspex screen. Any conversation was a muffled affair. Best avoided. Malcolm packed his stuff, swiped his credit card then headed for home. 

oOo

Entering the house all was peace and tranquility. 

Jamie and Robbie at the dining table doing their schoolwork. This week it was Geography. Learning about countries. Diversity. Different religions. Different cultures.  
Both boys engrossed. With Sam leaning over them supervising. 

Fuck, but she was doing such a sterling job. 

Her accountancy firm had furloughed her. There just simply wasn't enough on for her to continue to work from home. She was only part time anyway. But he knew she missed it. It was her little bit of her own 'thing'. Separate from being a mum and a wife, a cook and a housekeeper. Now however, she took on yet another role. 

Home schooling. 

Being a teacher to her two boys. 

Malcolm had nothing but admiration. 

"Fuck me!"

Everything was so different these days. 

So new. 

Not like when he was at school, where you learned your times tables. Reciting them by rote. 

_Once four is four. Two fours are eight. Three fours are twelve. Four fours are sixteen....._

Another planet. 

Sums.  
They called them that, back then. Sums. 

Plus. Minus. Times. (Not add, subtract, multiply, they'd never called it that). Divide. 

Jamie's maths at 7, was like a foreign language. Malcolm wasn't thick, not by any stretch of the imagination, but it wasn't just the maths they did, it was the way they did it!  
Totally different to the way he'd been taught. 

Reading too. For him, it had been Janet and John. Or 'Through the Garden Gate.'

Now it was all digital library. Reading eggs. Word families and phonics. 

Left him feeling like he was one step up from the special bus....

"You can't say that Malcolm! It's not PC. Don't you dare let the children hear you say that. It's bad enough when you swear!" 

Contrite, he'd vanished, left her to it.  
Jesus!  
Was he such an old fossil? 

He knew stuff didn't he? He was clever. 

Apparently not. 

Grace, who was not yet at full time school, nevertheless joined her brothers with lessons, otherwise she became upset, being left out. She was, at present, engrossed in a sticker book.  
She was his little protégé. Well advanced for her age.  
Every night when he read her a story, she would point to the words as they went along. Four years old and she was practically reading.  
Without all the fucking modern crap. She'd just picked it up the way he had as a young child. The old way.  
Bright as a button. 

Peering over her shoulder he admired her page. 

"Good sticking!" He smiled. 

Her little face turned upwards towards him glowing with pride. She handed him the picture. 

"It's for you." She beamed. 

"Thank you munchkin! I'll hang it on the wall in my study. Where I can see it when I'm writing." 

A smackeroo kiss, her pale arms around his neck, squeezing tight. 

Fuck! But he was such a lucky bastard! 

oOo

Malcolm craved stupid things. 

A really good takeaway coffee. 

A really good takeaway for that matter! Preferably Indian. 

Uninterrupted time with Sam. 

He was never fussed about holidays, but because he couldn't have one he longed for one. The seaside. Or a cottage somewhere perhaps. 

He missed Jamie. (Not his son Jamie, but his namesake and best friend, Jamie McDonald.)

They were reduced to Zoom chats. 

Chats where sometimes someone froze and looked like they'd been shot in the back of the neck with a dart gun. Or the connection would disappear entirely. Leaving nothing but silence and a black screen with a little white man symbol on it.  
Stilted, awkward conversations which were nothing like the real thing.  
Glenn Cullen was useless at it. His camera was always on just the top of his head and glasses. 

"Lower it you stupid fucker." 

"I'm afraid to touch it. Every time I do it all goes Pete Tong." 

The more people there were joining in, the more difficult it was to have any kind of meaningful conversation. Everyone spoke at once, or worse, no one spoke at all and they ended up all sitting there looking at each other dumbly.  
Then, just as the chat really got going, the fucking thing would time out and cut them off. 

_"You have used your allotted 40 minutes....."_

Fuck! 

Real human contact. 

That's what he missed the most. 

He knew Sam did too. She missed Ellie McDonald and her other friends. The kids missed their classmates.  
Grace missed Jess, who was her surrogate sister in all but name. 

Little Malcolm, as he was referred to by them all (Malcolm himself being 'Big Malcolm' in their closed circle) Jamie's youngest, and his godson, was now one year old. Growing like the clappers.  
Walking already. A little powerhouse who loves cars and anything with wheels.  
"Car!" Being his first word.

It was now two months since Malcolm had seen the youngster properly. He felt bereft. 

Man talk. He missed that too. 

He was beginning to find everything rather depressing. 

In fact listening to the daily afternoon Covid update, regularly had him swearing at the television screen. 

_"You can go out, but don't go out. You can go back to work but don't go back to work unless you really have to. Stay home. But go out to exercise. Stay safe. Wear a mask if you have to travel on public transport. Protect the NHS. Stay alert."_

"Oh for _fucks_ sake!" 

"Switch it off Malc. You know Matt Hancock gets your blood pressure up!" 

Sam joined him, carrying a large gin and tonic. 

"Bit early isn't it? It's half four in the fecking afternoon." 

"Who cares! Without gin I'd be in a straight jacket, jibbering inanely and muttering to myself about not being able to get my roots done and my nails manicured!"

Malcolm laughed heartily. 

"Come and sit with me a moment. Give your hubby a cuddle." 

Sliding onto the sofa next to him, his wife snuggled into his side. 

"I fucking love you." He whispered. 

But it wasn't to last. 

No sooner had they begun to kiss when they were assaulted by the 'three musketeers'.  
Leaping onto the settee next to them, giggling. Sarcastic 'la di da' voices.....

_"Oooo! Mummy and Daddy! Smoochy smoochy!"_

Malcolm grabbed the nearest child at random and began tickling.

"Come here you wee feral child! Come and be tickled to death by the tickle monster!" 

That was well and truly the end of the potential parental 'me time'! 

oOo

Stepping out of the shower Malcolm viewed himself critically in the mirror. 

"I need a fucking haircut." He moaned. 

"Malcolm, you've needed a haircut for a month or more. Your hair is visible from Outer Space. You're like one of those alpacas at the Farm Park. Or Charlton Heston as Moses!" 

"Fuck you!" 

"Do you want me to try cutting it?" 

"I was going to take the buzz saw to it. Two millimetres all over." 

Sam made a squeak of horror.

"Oh no you won't!" She snapped. "I'll find some decent scissors and have a go at it myself. What could possibly go wrong?" 

Ten minutes later Malcolm was seated meekly on a dining chair in the garden with a towel around his shoulders.  
Tufts of his steel grey locks falling like dirty snowflakes onto the concrete and around his knees.  
Sam snipped carefully, her tongue poking out as she concentrated. 

"Short back and sides Sir!" She quipped. 

"Yes please Tiffany, and something for the weekend." A wicked wink accompanied his reply. 

Once done, she stepped back to admire her handiwork. 

"Not quite Vidal Sassoon, but not a bad effort, though I say so myself." Pulling the comb through once more. 

She'd taken the sides short around his ears and left some length on top. Here, the hair was naturally wavy.

"Feels better anyway." Malcolm mussed both hands through it, roughing it up thoroughly. "Thanks love." 

"Daddy you look so handsome now." Grace said, climbing onto his lap, touching his head gently with her small fingers. "It's all lovely and soft." She whispered reverentially.  
"Aye! Like my head." Responded her father with a mischievous grin. 

oOo

Evenings in isolation were long. 

There were only so many glasses of wine you could have sitting in the garden after the kids were in bed. 

They'd exhausted all the newest movies on Sky.

They'd taken part in online quizzes.....something which Malcolm barely tolerated. 

_"How far is it from The Earth to Jupiter?"_

"Who gives a fuck?"

_"Malcolm!"_

"Well! What a fucking stupid question."

"Who's gonna know that exactly? At best it'll be a random guess."

_"You're really not entering into the spirit of this are you?"_

"I need another beer."

They'd gone outside on a Thursday at 8pm precisely. Every week. Along with all or most of the neighbours. Dutifully clapping their hands for the NHS and Care Workers. The kids banging on old saucepans with wooden spoons.  
Their front window sported a home made rainbow, as did several others in the street. 

A lovely sense of community, Sam said.  
Malcolm was a little more sceptical. He thought it was more down to people frowning on you if you didn't take part. 

_'Shame on the Tucker's. They didn't clap this week. They don't care about the people on the frontline!'_

"I don't have to stand out front clapping till my hands are sore to care. I care a lot actually!"

But that was just Malcolm being cynical. 

At weekends it was the National Theatre live. Streaming on YouTube.  
And thank god for it! 

Both the Tucker's enjoyed live theatre. It wasn't quite like actually being there, but it was a pretty damn good substitute. 

Something decent to watch rather than ancient repeats or other people, loosely termed as _'celebs'_ on zoom filming themselves and calling it a TV programme. 

It was hard going at times. No doubt about it. 

A bored Malcolm was not a happy Malcolm. 

So it became Sam's mission to keep him amused as well as the children. In fact she'd told Ellie, on the quiet, that it was a bit like having four children in the house instead of three. 

He ate crisps. Malcolm never ate crisps. He drank beer. Malcolm never drank beer. 

He made messes while trying to attempt DIY. (Much to Sam's annoyance, since she had to clear up after him.)  
In fact he drilled through a wire trying to put up a picture he'd had for over a year.  
Fused the entire house. 

For fucks sake......

At least he had the book. 

That was his saving grace. 

Writing. 

The discipline of it. 

He could disappear in his study. Shut the door. Lose himself..... 

.......not always in writing however. 

Surfing the net. 

Online shopping.

He'd become addicted. Corona madness! 

Waiting eagerly for the deliveries of the things he desperately needed that he'd ordered. 

DHL. Yodel. Royal Mail. Hermes. 

All the van drivers knew the address now. 

Cheerful delivery men and women. Ringing the bell then stepping back. 

_"Another delivery for you Mr Tucker!"_

Books to read. Puzzles for the children. T Shirts. New pants. Coffee pods for the kitchen machine. Garden bird feeders. Fat balls to fill the garden bird feeders. Lavender essential oil to soothe Sam in her bath at the end of the day. A new hose reel. Multi purpose anti-bacterial sanitising surface wipes. DVD's. Picture hooks.  
A myriad of other terribly useful things he'd found on Amazon, or EBay, or Etsy. 

All at the click of a button. 

Delivered to your door. 

Fucking fantastic! 

Perhaps lockdown wasn't so bad after all! 

And finally there were always the nights. 

Nights when you didn't have to set the alarm for the morning because there was fuck all to do and nowhere to go. 

Early nights. 

Lying curled together with cocoa listening to a drama on the BBC Sounds App. 

Snuggly nights. 

Making love in the darkness, moving together as one. Nothing better. 

Late nights. 

Slightly tipsy. 

Those Lockdown nights when Malcolm was so grateful for everything he had. 

What was a few weeks, a few months without all those other things? 

He had his family. His wife. 

They were safe, happy, healthy and together. 

He was loved. 

Nothing else really mattered. 

_"Stay home. Stay safe. Protect the NHS."_

Fin.


End file.
